Posted on 05/21/2006 7:03:50 PM PDT by Paul8148
Barbaro broke 3 bones in his lower right hing leg and dislocated the ankle in the region in the Preakness Stakes yesterday.
It was fairly gruesome. It made me want to go hug my dogs when I first saw it.
They didn't go into surgery expecting he'd race. They fused the ankle. If he makes it, he'll walk oddly at best, but maybe the mares won't care.
Great news!
Thanks for posting it.
Thank God -- now to pray there is no infection that sets in.
Good news, but there's a long way to go in recovery. Best of luck and prayers.
"It was fairly gruesome. It made me want to go hug my dogs when I first saw it."
Same here!
A race horse can never "fully recover" from this injury. It was known at the race track that Barbaro's running career is over. It was also doubtful this AM that he would even be able to cover a mare. This "prancing back" is very, very good news. He needs to be carefully mobile during his recovery; enough to promote blood circulation and not enough to over-strain the ankle.
To late for that, already a movie out. Dreamer
maybe the mares won't care.
barring the worst,, he'll get dates and lots of them, and not cheap ones either. ;-)
Thanks for this update.....I've been thinking about & praying for Barbaro all day.
I hope he continues to improve and recovers.
May he enjoy a long happy retirement in green pastures!
He'll never get through the metal detector at the airport.
Knowing nothing about horses, question -- when a dog breaks a leg they put a cast on it - hip replacements are common as well. They've even fitted an elephant with a prosthesis. Good Year Rubber fitted a seal with a prosthetic rear flipper/tail. Accepting the horse will never race again....what's with horses they must be euthanized for a fractured leg? Why?
WoW! That's a lot of hardware!
heartbroken....
did you see him hugging the assistant trained and balling on the track yesterday??
This is good news. It's important that he be able to move about and not be stationary in a sling. All sorts of problems arise from that. He's not out of the woods yet, but it looks promising. I'm hoping for the best.
I'm gonna repost some bits I wrote earlier to answer the same question....
Unlike a person, or even a dogs, the lower leg of a horse has practically no soft tissue, no muscle that is rich with blood supply, it is all bone and ligament, and the leg and hoof does not get the blood supply it needs to function, let alone heal, unless it can move. Movement is circulation to a horse.
The goal will be to get the leg stabilized enough so he can be turned out to pasture to move as soon as is possible. A horse's health deteriorates rapidly from inactivity.
Horses are too big to roll around in wheelchairs, and cannot lay down for long periods and have normal function either. To digest food, they need to move. To feed their legs with oxygen, they need to move, to breath, they need to move. A horse will get pneumonia merely from standing too long unable to lower their head to drain their sinus. They fear laminitis, a debilitating foot condition, in his "good" back leg, because while it's supporting all the weight, it is nearly as immobile as the bad leg. It's very complicated to rehab a horse from an injury this serious.
On another thread you mentioned you were worried about he horse -- looks like good news.
Thank You.
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